fifteen minutes of free will
by free-pirate
Summary: A short anthology of general drabbles and ficlets. Most written in just fifteen minutes.
1. Salt

**A/N:** Instead of posting each of my general drabbles seperately, I figured I'm anthologize them. Look for more in the future, because I never know what I'll come out with.

Not mine. I just like to play.

_Salt_

There are thin white lines hidden everywhere; under the welcome mat that Jess insisted they buy, along the windowframes, just out of sight enough so she can't see them. Every entrance in or out of their apartment is barriered off to anything evil.

It's part paranoia and part common sense, another margin of some feeling he can't shake, and he wishes he could forget. As much as he doesn't want to be part of that life, the life he was conditioned to conform to, he still finds himself inactively participating.

When he's procrastinating on a paper, he clicks through the online databases for demonology, folklore, mythology... anything he'd normally have looked for. He finds himself making notes about things he's never heard of and never encountered, carefully tucked away in a hidden compartment of the bag he totes to and from classes. He still reads local papers and scan obituaries, and finds every excuse he can to take long bus-rides around town.

What it will teach him, in the long run, is that you can't go back to being innocent after you've encountered the secret things no one knows about. He'll use his father as a scapegoat, blame him for not giving them the chance to grow up any other way, but it's not really his fault. The man is stubborn, but he isn't heartless.

And as much as he tries, tries to train himself out of checking the closet and dark spaces under the bed, he can't. That's the immediate reason he's glad to see his brother - for the first time in forever, it seems like. Dean is, if anything, more fanatical about these things than Sam is. It isn't strange to be cautious here, and once he's back on the road, he feels normal. Sane, again.

That's the immediate reason that Jess's death doesn't affect him more than it does - though, on a deeper level, it probably will. It's like being jerked out of a dream, back to being eighteen again; he's amazed at how well he can sink back into the mold of who he was before when he thought that person was long dead.


	2. Open

_Open_

The feeling was an uncomfortable one, contradictory and nonsensical in its complexity. He didn't allow himself to think about it.

The thing was, it was impossible to get a full ride without some sort of parental involvement. There were mounds of paperwork that had to be read and signed, questions that had to be answered and interviews to attend. It wasn't going to easy, and that, at least, was the one certain, solid fact he'd been clinging to since he'd received the thick packet.

In retrospect, it probably wasn't the best time to ask. Of course, it's not like there was an appropriate time to ask the sort of question he had to. With his father being the way he was, an opportune moment would never present itself. He had to take the plunge while he had the courage to do so.

Sam felt open, exposed, like a child being chastised even as he drew himself up to his full height and pushed the words out in a rush before they had a chance to escape him.

It was probably a mistake not to at least let Dean know before, and in his long career of mistakes it was one that stuck out. He'd remember the look on his brother's face all through freshman year and beyond, until he finally severed all the ties he had with his family and tried to forget those particular memories.

Not that it worked. At least not for very long; they'd come back to him at the least expected moments, John's stony expression and the disappointment, anger, bubbling right under the surface. Dean's thinly-veiled shock and the betrayal that he didn't even try to hide. The anger came later, but it was that moment that chose to haunt him.

That, and his father's voice telling him that if he left, he couldn't come back.

No matter how much Sam tried to convince himself otherwise, somewhere in the back of his mind and the deepest, darkest corner of his subconscious he knew that the solid, angry sentiment behind those words was probably the reason he hadn't come running back when he realized that he was just as much of a freak as the high school bullies always told him he was.

If nothing else, it was Dean's expression that told him there were some burnt bridges that couldn't exactly be rebuilt but couldn't be completely left alone either, like the sore tooth you can't help but poke with your tongue or the sore place you've got to prod because you've got to confirm that the pain is still real.


	3. Tide

_Tide_

After the Grand Canyon, they head to the ocean.

Sam's been here more than once over the years, and at least one of those memories is dominated by Jess. But it's the first time in a while that seeing the cheery 'Welcome to California!' sign doesn't make him itchy and uncomfortable.

It's the first time in a long time that it doesn't feel like something's bearing down on his shoulders, wrapping around his lungs and constricting his breathing.

He's almost forgotten the way sand gets absolutely everywhere, and how the water mists in the places where it's thrown against the rocks with the ebb and flow of the tide.


	4. Dark

_Dark_

There are no cars on this road. Usually, the headlights of passing cars illuminate the front seat, and Sam can see where Dean's staring out the windshield. He can guess with almost perfect accuracy what his brother looks like right now, but the dark closes over them both until there's just their own headlights along the broken white line that divides the road.

It does more than that, though. It divides _them_, creates this palpable tension that has more to do with what just happened than the road itself. But with every few hundred white dashes Dean puts between them and the spot on the side of the road where he trusted Sam enough to tell him the truth, the void gapes wider.

Sam knows that Dean will blame himself, because that's what Dean does. He can't actually complain because he has a tendency to do so himself. This time, though, the blame isn't unfounded; Dean might trust Sam enough to tell him the truth about the three months (forty years) he was in Hell, but Sam still can't find it in himself to tell Dean about the three months he spent trying to get him back.

If there were other cars here, he might be able to see how white Dean's knuckles are on the wheel. It's unnecessary - he doesn't have to see to know that they are.


	5. Mirror

_Mirror_

They're perfectly crafted liars. It's critical in this life; you've got to lie, and you've got to be good at it. You've got to be good enough to make people believe the sky's green if you wanted them to.

But they've never been able to lie to each other, which is why it's at once so easy to spot and difficult to understand. Dean used to be able to read Sam like an open book, but the person he's come back to is closed-off, locked and duct-taped shut. The same book, written in a language he can't read.

It's easy to believe, sometimes, that nothing's changed, because they do the same things they did before. They rhythm's the same, even if the tempo's changed, even if the beat's picked up speed. But it's just a mask now, only mirroring what it was before.

Which, to be perfectly honest, he expected. But that's the one thing about mirrors; they can't lie. The image can be distorted and reversed, but what's staring back at you is always truth in it's sharpest form. Pretending they can ever be anything like they were again is just the easiest way to avoid looking in the mirror.


End file.
